Sorry Ladies…no cheesy pics of singers or actresses – the object of my desire is a platter of meatballs.  Make no mistake I would kill all of you for a decent meatball.  God I’m so hungry, today I ate a bag of frozen corn…times are tough.  And if you aren’t supposed to put metal in a microwave why is the rack in there metal?  Stupid soup cans…

Enough for the introduction…

Of all the stuff that has been written about fly casting, I feel the lion’s share of it has fallen to the double haul. A lot of this material contradicts itself…or at least seems to. In all honesty, I personally believe that the majority of what has been written about the double haul was written by people who have no idea how or why it works.

In this regard, my article will be no different.

Seriously, I have no idea why pulling against a force with a force in the opposite direction increases that force. I even asked my physics professor, but he started with some crap about torque and yo-yo’s and all sort of brainiac BS, I was sorry I asked

So if you need an explanation for why this works you won’t find it here. However, I have a better than fair understanding of the “what” of it, and with practice I have no doubt anyone can learn how to perform this technique.

Now there has been a good deal of debate over how and when in a caster’s education to introduce the double haul. I feel that the single biggest impediment to learning to haul has to do with your rod hand. I’ve taught enough people to see that the reason many find the double haul to be so hard to learn – is that they often “forget” how to cast with the rod.  For example you see a beginner who finally learned the positive stop (hardest part) and is producing beautiful loops.  Rather than spending the time to commit this to muscle memory, the student attempts to add a haul and the whole cast falls apart.

Naturally the student and often the teacher assume it’s something they are doing wrong with their line hand, and focus on the technique for the haul. Their hauls are perfectly timed and executed, but still the cast either falls apart or is not significantly longer or more powerful then they were without hauling.  So what went wrong?

Most often the problem is that they simply stopped making crisp positive stops with the rod hand. Hopefully you will spend the required time to develop the muscle memory of the positive stop – but odds are you wont, look its just human nature. Standing in a field doing the back cast drill with a nice positive stop is boring and makes you look like an idiot. I once got the phone number of a dental nurse after having my wisdom teeth yanked and being half in la-la land with blood pouring down my drool soaked chin….but in 20 years of practicing at well traveled parks and office developments – never, not once, not even close.  However, by concentrating on the haul, the rod hand becomes a secondary concern, with muscle memory your positive stop and casting stroke is on auto-pilot, without it the cast falls apart.

Your choice.

A perfect haul with a poor rod cast give you much worse results than a poor haul with a perfect rod cast.

The real key to learning to haul is to make sure that the rest of your casting components stay consistent. I find the best way to do this is you keep an eye on it. The “look over your shoulder” method is ok, but I don’t recommend it simply because it takes you out of the cast by changing your body position. Honestly, if you are a good enough caster to reposition yourself during the cast without screwing it up, odds are perfect good you don’t need to look at it, or need to read this article for that matter.

A better method is to simply move the whole cast into a horizontal plane in front of you. Square your shoulders (for a righty) your left shoulder with direct your “forward” cast and your right shoulder will direct your “back” cast. Now find a football field and stand 6′ from the end zone (a similar effect can be created by laying a rope along the ground if you MUST your could even use the baseline from a baseball field, Heaven Forefend!) With your rod by your side and its tip straight out and parallel to the ground, roughly three feet of the rod should be in the endzone. You are going to make casts on this horizontal plane, aiming the casting along the line of the endzone – the rod tip must NEVER leave the endzone (none of this break the plane crap.) This will keep your loops tight and powerful.

Now with the MARK in your line hand, start making some false casts. Concentrate on making good positive stops as the tip arcs towards the border of the endzone. If you have a fast rod and feel that you can make this cast with less of a casting arc, step back a foot. Keep doing this until you are comfortable – then continue until you are bored. By using your eyes and the positive stop you should be making very consistent casts in terms of distance and accuracy. You may also want to note that (unless you are HUGE) the rod tip is less than four feet from the surface of the Earth, yet you should easily be able to keep the line from hitting the ground while false casting – something to think about the next time you are fishing from a belly boat. You should never slap water with your cast…unless you want to when using a big hair fly for largemouth bass.

Now continue to do exactly what you were doing but add a haul. Now you may have read that you only need a tiny tug during the positive stop, or you may have seen some guys making dramatic cross-body hauls. Since I’m not really sure how it works I can only say what I have found best.

I find it easiest if both my rod and line hands are moving in synch or if they are doing exactly the opposite. I like this because it avoids the “Pat your head, Rub your Belly” theme of some other hauling techniques. So essentially I am hauling for the entire casting stroke…and like the casting stroke it starts slow and accelerates to a quick but short tug of the line during the positive stop.

One other point…I find the haul is always useful, but to make a major difference in the force of the cast, it only helps if you allow some line to slip through your fingers. If you are holding the MARK, the only time you want to add more line to the cast is on the final back cast before you make your delivery on the next forward cast. This is ESPECIALLY true if you are using a shooting head or a line that mimics one with a very thin running line. Controlling a cast with the running line is a bad idea.

Now stop…

If you already know the answer to this conundrum then I give you, by the power vested in me by the Esteemed Lords of Fly Fishing – the right to have a Cadbury Cream Egg (they are only around till Easter) I don’t care if you gave them up for Lent, New Years Resolution, or even if you are a bitter old bastard.  Cream Eggs are good and you deserve one, Kudos to you.

Now the rest of you morons, drop and give me 20 Hindu Push ups!!!! Fie for shame!!! Standing like an idiot making false cast after false cast is needless…with good technique – which you have, a crisp positive stop, tight loops, and a now a double haul you should never need to false cast unless for some reason you want to, and then the energy requirement is so minimal you don’t need to worry about adding more force to the cast.

Now back to practice…

Don’t try to kill it, just give it a nice haul – when properly performed the difference in power is substantial. When you feel you have it down, try making a few casts from the standard vertical plane (when I am fishing in a boat with another person I make many of my casts from the horizontal plane to avoid accidents – and on windy days I find these casts easier to make and quicker, a benefit when fishing for a speedy fish like a false albacore.) If the casts start to break down (they usually will) return to the horizontal and get that feeling back again. I actually find that it will help to close your eyes and haul away after a while – once this sight-based exercise becomes feel-based it’s pretty much learned (if you have the muscle memory for the positive stop you may be surprised at just how quickly.). You will want to experiment with quicker longer hauls and see what works best for you. I honestly can only say what I’ve found…you may prefer another way never hurts to try.

Next up we put it all together with one last drill…

I know I may sound strange talking about the muscle memory, but it does pay to practice, even if it’s just to pantomime the cast. When you bring your arm through the cast you want that smooth acceleration to a sudden positive stop…when you can do that literally in your sleep – come on I’m not the only sleep caster – everything else becomes easier.